The present invention relates to a data handling system having an interrupt system, and to a method for servicing an interrupt request in a data handling system. Interrupt systems are well known in the art and established in a plurality of microcomputers and micro controllers. Most of the known systems are limited to a number of interrupt sources below ten. To service a higher number of peripherals generating interrupts, special interrupt controllers are provided. These interrupt controllers often provide an arbitration unit for selecting the source of an interrupt with the highest priority.
However, in a data processing system having a plurality of peripheral devices generating interrupt requests, it is often not possible to react on events in real time because handling of an interrupt request is too cumbersome and time-consuming.